Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, in his death has done what the Democrats have so far failed to do — push US President Donald Trump to reverse policy. Epstein has dethroned a British royal, forced a former Harvard president into a mini-sabbatical, and opened a Pandora’s box with potential investigations into American banking firms.
Some of the most well–known power brokers, scientists, academicians, government officials, diplomats, and businesspersons have all come under scrutiny half a decade after Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in New York City while awaiting trial.
Trump’s abrupt reversal — agreeing to release the Epstein files after months of refusal — and the political shock it triggered in Washington are why the release is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
The documents have put the spotlight on institutional failures, unsettled global elites, and exposed a fault line inside the Republican Party, making this disclosure one of the most consequential document drops of the year.
An inflection point for Trump
Last week, the US House Oversight Committee released almost 23,000 pages of records that were obtained from the dead financier’s estate. The release came after the House Democrats on the Oversight Committee first dropped emails indicating that the US President knew more of Epstein’s activities than previously revealed. Trump spent months denying any knowledge of Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, calling the allegations a “hoax.”
“I want you to realise that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump…[Victim] spent hours at my house with him, he has never once been mentioned,” Epstein wrote in an email to long-time confidante Ghislaine Maxwell in 2011. The email was one of the three released by the Democrats in the House Oversight Committee.
The subsequent emails and records published by the House Oversight Committee on 12 November set off a scramble to understand the reach of Epstein. The release of his emails has been a major issue plaguing the Trump presidency over the summer. A number of Republicans, led primarily by Representative Thomas Massie, have argued for the release of Epstein’s files held by the US government. Trump attempted to persuade Republican lawmakers to back away from a measure demanding the US Justice Department to release the Epstein files. However, on Tuesday, Trump backtracked.
The call to release Epstein’s emails and records — a call originally from the political Right — became a part of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again! (MAGA)’ movement, and has since come to find almost unanimous support in the US Congress. Trump, who has nurtured the MAGA movement for the last decade, has been perceived to have lost control over the movement in the last few months, particularly with the release of Epstein’s records.
Trump signed the legislation on Wednesday, authorising his administration to release files concerning Epstein, bowing to pressure from his own party, the larger MAGA movement, and possibly showing the first weakness after almost eleven months of continued success in governing the US. For Trump, the moment is an inflection point over his control over the MAGA movement.
The best example of the pressure the release of Epstein’s files has had on the President’s control over the Republican Party is his split with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Taylor Greene, who has been one of the staunchest supporters of Trump, was also one of the loudest voices calling for the release of Epstein’s files.
The administration’s attempt to deflect the legislation got to the point where House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to swear-in Representative Adelita Grijalva for over 50 days, after she won a special election on 23 September for a seat held by her late father Raúl Grijalva in Arizona. Adelita Grijalva had promised to sign on to a bi-partisan petition to force the vote in the House demanding the US Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
Johnson defended his decision saying that the delay was due to the House being in recess. However, Grijalva’s signature would have been the 218th, and the last one, on the petition required to force the House vote.
Trump’s reluctance to release the files for months is interesting given that the American President had been good friends with the convicted sex offender in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press Secretary, last week defended Trump. She stated that the President and Epstein’s friendship ended after Trump kicked the dead financier out of his club — Mar-a-Lago — for being a “pedophile and a creep” almost two decades ago.
In the middle of the storm around Epstein, his closest confidante Maxwell, who was found guilty of child sex trafficking in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2022, was potentially seeking a commutation of her sentence from Trump. According to reports, Maxwell was moved to a different prison in August, days after meeting with Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General.
Also read: Why the US Congress put its foot down on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files
Epstein’s continued links to powerful men
Epstein was eventually convicted as a sex offender in 2008 in a plea deal. However, despite the conviction, the financier maintained his links with influential individuals, especially Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, UK’s King Charles III’s brother.
Andrew gave up all his royal titles including the Duke of York over his ties to Epstein.
Epstein’s net, however, went far and wide. Even after getting convicted, he remained in touch with several prominent personalities until his arrest in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. Lawrence H Summers, former Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton and president of Harvard University, remained in touch with Epstein until at least mid-2019.
Summers, a well–known economist, apologised for his continued friendship with Epstein and will now no longer teach at Harvard. However, given that he is a tenured professor, he cannot be easily removed from his job at the university. Summers and Epstein exchanged at least 86 emails in the decade leading up to Epstein’s death by suicide in 2019.
Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel, met Epstein in early 2003 and remained in touch with the financier long after his original conviction in 2008. Between 2013 and 2017, Barak and Epstein discussed regional geopolitics in their emails.
Peter Mandelson, the Labour Party power-broker in the UK, was fired as ambassador to the US by Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this year due to his connection to Epstein. Mandelson stayed in touch with Epstein till at least 2016.
Apart from these leaders, JPMorgan Chase — the largest bank in the US — is coming under the scanner with Democratic politicians calling for a review of how the bank handled Epstein’s money. It was only after Epstein’s death that the bank revealed almost $1.3 billion in suspicious transactions related to the financier.
Long after his death, Epstein continues to impact those around him, given that for over a decade after his first conviction, prominent personalities did not cut their ties with him.
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(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)